The
first three months of this first half-year's work were devoted to ascertaining
the condition and number of women and children in the workshops and factories
of Illinois, and in making known the law to employers and employees. After
three months of this preliminary work, it was decided to enforce the law
in the courts. This is the more necessary because the number of employers
is so vast that the ten deputies of this department cannot continually
visit and revisit the same shops. The law must be obeyed by the people
themselves, and not by reason of the incessant visitation of a very small
corps of inspectors . . . .

The
diminution in the number of children employed is so marked since the policy
of persistent prosecution of offenders has become widely known throughout
the city and State, that it will be continued uninterruptedly until compliance
with this law becomes as much a matter of course as compliance with the
internal revenue law now is in the tobacco trade.

Following
is the record of prosecutions of offenders, beginning October 21, 1893.

11. Wertheimer, Samuel,
before Justice Eberhardt November 14; cloakmaker at 535 W. Sixteenth street
fo Joseph
Beifeld & Co.; charged with employing two children under 16 years
of age without affidavits; first jury trial under the law;
found guilty and fined $3 and costs . . .